Newer Search Engines Add Twists to Search - Searching Without a Keyboard
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When I first heard the concept behind Enetez, I thought they were nuts. Instead of using your keyboard, you search with a series of drop-down menus. How do they think that’s going to cover all of the topics about which someone might search?
The answer is that they don’t expect to cover everything. When you arrive at their portal, you see that they have a regular search box fed by Google. You can choose to use their sans-keyboard search feature. You start with country and category drop-downs, and then get more specific. Here’s how my search started to shape up after using a few drop-down menus:
So what kind of a result did I get from this? When I first clicked into the result, more than half of the screen was taken up with what I thought of as extraneous information. In a large rectangle on the top right was a box that displayed my search. Below that was another rectangle that ran the full length of the screen filled with sponsored ads – all for Fort Lauderdale banks, not movies. But once I scrolled past that, my results weren’t too bad:
What do I think of this? It’s really an interface and not a search engine in its own right, which is why it talks about being “enhanced by Google.” It reminds me very much of the “phone trees” you sometimes have to navigate through when calling insurance companies to get to the right person or department. On the other hand, if you’re just looking for something entertaining to do in your area and haven’t really focused on what yet, this can help you narrow it down. There are many other categories of information that I didn't list here, so it's not just for entertainment.
The interface works as advertised. It really is easier to use. Who needs to come up with keywords when they’re listed right in the drop-downs? I can see myself bookmarking this search engine to use for certain very specific sorts of searches. It’s not a full answer to every search, but it does certain things fairly well.
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